Keeping history alive

Merton Worcestor

Origin: Originates
from London, England, United Kingdom. Introduced 1914.Appearance:
medium to small size. Short round conical, fairly regular, can be a little
lopsided. Greenish yellow, flushed deep, blood red with darker indistinct
stripes. Skin smooth and slightly greasy.Taste: It is
crisp, juicy and sweet with a light strawberry flavour. Vigor:
Upright spreading, heavy cropping, susceptible to bitterpit.Background:
Merton Worcestor is one of the first apples developed by the John Innes
Horticultural Institute, shortly after it was established in the early 20th
century with a bequest from John Innes, a London
property developer with an interest in horticulture. These apples are all named
with the prefix “Merton” after the suburb of south London where John Innes lived and were the
institute was originally based.Merton Worcestor is also probably the most
successful of the Merton series of apples, and has been grown commercially on a
small scale in England.
However, it has never really achieved the commercial success of either its
parents – Worcestor Pearmain or Cox’s Orange Pippin. It is probably best
considered as an enhanced Worcestor Pearmain because visually and in terms of
flavour it is difficult to distinguish from that variety.If you like Worcestor Pearmain then Merton
Worcestor is well worth growing for that reason alone – but it is clear that
the aromatic flavours that its developers probably hoped would have been
inherited from Cox’s Orange Pippin did not happen.

Interestingly though, the true potential of
crossing Worcestor Pearmain with Cox’s Orange Pippin was eventually realized –
but it took another generation (both human and apple) to appear. By the 1950s
apple research around the world was increasingly focusing on disease resistance
and Gavin Brown at the John Innes Institute in Bayfordbury turned to the
naturally resistant Merton Worcestor as a starting point. During the 1950s he developed a new variety
derived from Merton Worcestor and called simply “Gavin” – which had excellent
resistance to the apple disease scab as a result of some complicated crossings
with crab apple varieties. And somehow the aromatic flavour of Cox’s Orange
Pippin which is latent in Merton Worcestor now came to the forefront and the
promise of Merton Worcestor was at last fulfilled.